Summer Bucket List 2012: Six Flags/Great Adventure Safari

Earlier this week, ABC News reported that Six Flags/Great Adventure will be closing their safari on September 30th. Although we’re sad to hear that (we love the safari!), they went on to say that the animals are staying on the property, so maybe they’re planning to turn it into a zoo of sorts (further details to be released at the end of August). Here’s hoping.

Luckily for us, we managed to sneak in one last visit to the safari last week, crossing yet another item off our Summer Bucket List – booyah.

Billed as the largest drive-thru safari outside of Africa, it’s 350 acres of open property that has all sorts of animals, hailing from six continents, freely roaming around. Some of the animals are kept behind fences (for example, elephants, the brown and black bears, the tigers, and the baboons), while others come right up to your car. Which is, quite frankly, the best part ever.

Last year when we went, we held up traffic for quite awhile as a giraffe hovered over my truck, licking every square inch of the sun roof.

It was awesome.

Seriously.

This year? We were not disappointed.

This giraffe (get a load of those eyelashes!) cleaned my radio antennae like nobody’s business. To the point that I was just super glad the radio actually still worked when he was done.

And it produced some of our favorite pictures ever.

We even captured a quick ten second video of the radio antennae cleaning action:

The brown bears pictured below were fun to watch. The truck on the right side is a safari employee, driving customers around (at a super hefty price!), and he was throwing out food for the bears. They would sit up straight and catch the treats.

We could have watched the elephants for hours. They were digging giant holes, and spraying themselves with the muddy water. I was stoked to have captured a shot of it.

The kids and I agreed that the giraffes and elephants were our favorite, followed by the bears.

If you’re in the area, or even if it’s a bit of a drive, do check out the safari. You can purchase tickets for just the safari by itself, which is what we do, or a combo ticket that includes admission to the theme park as well. When you buy your safari tickets, you have the option of buying a photo guidebook, which is a gorgeous book packed with photos and details of all the animals from the safari, and it was a $2 bargain.

A look back … last years’ visit to the safari.

Need more summer bucket list ideas to finish out the season? Check out these other suggestions from the folks at Daily Buzz Moms.